


Battlefield Angel

by shiniestqueen (sparrowinsky)



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M, Gift Fic, M/M, Other, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-13
Updated: 2016-06-13
Packaged: 2018-07-14 22:17:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7193051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sparrowinsky/pseuds/shiniestqueen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A doctor stumbles backwards in time and meets her soulmates.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Battlefield Angel

**Author's Note:**

  * For [miss_moonstone](https://archiveofourown.org/users/miss_moonstone/gifts).



> Written for miss_moonstone's birthday in April (<3!). Delaney is the OC from her adorable soulmark fics which you should definitely go check out. :)

It’s glowing.

It’s glowing. She probably shouldn’t touch it.

Something about it, though--

She reaches out, and the glow reaches back. Cold sears through her, like nothing she’s ever felt.

She screams.

She falls.

* * *

 

“That’s an order, Captain Rogers.” Colonel Phillips didn’t rise from his seat. He didn’t have to, to cast an intimidating aura throughout the tent. The tight set of his shoulders and the grim line of his mouth was enough.

But not, unfortunately, for Captain America.

“Sir, I understand the-”

“You don’t, son, or you wouldn’t be arguing.” Phillips sighed and pushed himself to his feet, the weight of one too many hard decisions dragging against him. “I’m aware of what you think of the chain of command, but this is one order you will obey. You and your bunch of hooligans are grounded, Rogers, for the next thirty-six hours.”

And god help us he thought, as Rogers stormed from the tent. Men would die in those thirty-six hours. Men that Captain America and his Howling Commandos could have saved. But even a battleship could sink, and he’d be damned if he’d send out troops again and again without pause, no matter their skill and utility. A leader of men knew better.

Miracle of science or not, every man could break.

* * *

 

She falls, falls, falls. Forever and an instant. Finds her feet in a city like none she’s ever seen. It will take her months, to see in it the bones of what it will become.

By that time, she’ll knows where she is. When she is. And that there’s no going back.

She can’t go home. But she can be useful.

There’s a war on, after all.

* * *

Steve sprawled on his bunk, too-long limbs slipping off the edges. The frame of the cot dug into his spine, but he ignored it in favor of glaring at the ceiling and, occasionally, sighing deeply. Even the heavy footsteps of someone approaching the tent didn’t warrant raising his head.

The tent flap rustled briefly. “Show that face to the Germans, punk. They might surrender.”

Steve sighed again and swung his feet off the bed, running a hand through his hair as he sat up. “They got a look at your ugly mug and it didn’t send ‘em running, don’t think mine’ll do any better.”

Bucky was easing himself to the opposite cot, lips a hard, thin line. His uniform was unchanged from yesterday’s return to camp, still filthy with the grime of seven days in a sodden teutonic forest. His hand pressed against his ribs.

Steve’s heart jumped in his chest.

“Buck?”

“I’m fine, don’t worry about it.”

“Bullshit, ‘you’re fine.’” Steve barely had to move to cross the tent, swinging himself from one cot to the other. His hands went to Bucky’s uniform immediately, gentle but determined.

“I’m telling you, I’m-- Steve-- get your hands off me, you little--” Bucky yanked one arm free of Steve’s ministrations and swung wildly, the kind of blow meant to land and sting a little, no more.

It didn’t land.

Bucky gasped, color slipping from his face. They were both still for a moment, Steve in shock and Bucky in pain. Then his eyes rolled back and he buckled, tipping sideways so fast that only Steve’s grip on his uniform kept him from crashing to the ground.

* * *

 

She keeps her eyes down, her mouth shut. Fingers moving through tasks far simpler than she’s capable of, but in the here and now--

There are women doctors, sure. Even some in the Army, now. She’s been following the news like a lifeline, proof that she can claw her way back up.

Watches boys scream and bleed and die of things she could have fixed, in another time.

Keeps her eyes down. Her mouth shut. Sanitizes what she can and moves on.

* * *

Steve’s tent is on the far edge of camp, separated from the hospital by the mess, the barracks, and half the administrative tents. A long walk through muddy paths. It takes less than a minute for Steve to start going through and over tents instead of around them. He doesn’t slow as he comes up to the hospital, one of the only real buildings in the camp; he just turns on his heel with a dancer’s grace and knocks the doors open with his shoulders.

“You can’t--”

“I need a doctor.” He pitches his voice loud as he cuts the woman off, swallowing down the twinge of guilt as she lets out a small squeak, her brown eyes wide. “Now.”

The woman glances at Bucky’s limp form in his arms and her face shifts into pure professionalism. “Of course. This way.”

Steve’s never been in the hospital before. It’s bigger than he knew. He follows the woman through several narrow hallways before she pushes open a door and he realizes, painfully grateful, that she took them to a private room. He knows there can’t be many.

“Lay him on the bed.” Her voice is calmly unrelenting and Steve quickly obeys. Her movements are precise and quick, and in within a few minutes she’s standing back from Bucky’s prone form.

“I’ll get someone to you as soon as I can.”

The room, when she leaves, is achingly silent. Steve watches his friend lie on a narrow hospital bed and breathe.

And bleed.

* * *

 

She takes the halls at a clip that has her careening into walls with every corner she rounds, knowing the nurse will follow with supplies. The nurse who should have gone for a doctor, but there aren’t any; Simons in surgery, Tempitt on loan to another camp, and Johnson-- as always-- drunk as a lord.

There’s just her, and she can’t deny that her fingers itch to practice her craft even as her mind rushes through what she knows: bullet wound; at least a day old; potentially septic. There’s a shortage of drugs, with the supply lines gone to shit in the last week. The bullet’s not the problem, but sepsis--

\--is a problem for later.

She pushes the door open, moving into the room with barely a check on her momentum until she sees the hulking figure in the corner. She can feel the shock spike through her system, the increase in her heartbeat. Her mouth drops open. And then she veers left and shouts for the nurse, hands flying.

“No-- he needs a doctor--”

And another shock floods her system. Noheneedsadoctor. The words that scrawl up the inside of her leg, the letter pressed together into one breathless statement opposite the gentle, questioning cursive of her other thigh.

“I am a doctor.” It’s all she says, all she can possibly say. Her heart is thumping fit to break her ribs, but meeting her soulmate is not the most important thing happening in this room right now.

Captain America subsides. She’d be grateful if she could spare the time. Instead she cuts a blood-darkened shirt from Bucky Barnes’ torso and frowns at the too-healed hole in his side.

“It didn’t hit anything vital,” she finally says, straightening. “If he lasted-- at minimum-- two days with it.”

“He’s going to be ok.” It’s a question, and it’s not. There’s a certain finality to that tone that carries the weight of an order.

She turns, and offers him what she hopes is a sympathetic smile. “He’s going to be prepped for surgery, I’m going to pull that bullet out-- we’ll dump sulfa on the wound and penicillin down his throat.” It’s strangely hard to speak. She feels caught, trapped, entranced, by the sharp blue eyes staring at her across a distance of mere feet. “Yes, Captain. He’ll be ok.”

* * *

 

When Bucky Barnes woke up, less than twelve hours later, Steve wasn’t at his side-- but a damn good-looking dame was. Nurses are supposed to wear a cap, he thought, still ever-so-slightly groggy. She didn’t carry herself like any nurse-- any woman-- he’d ever seen, though.

Well. Maybe like Peggy Carter.

He let himself admire the dark sheen of the tightly wrapped bun for a moment, before dropping his gaze somewhat lower. Life being unfair, that’s when the woman turned around.Bucky flicked his eyes back up, catching hers, mouthing forming a denial that died on his lips.

Instead what came out-- he could kick himself--

“You’re an angel, right?”

She laughed, eyes glittering with delight. “No, but I think I’m your soulmate.” Her cheeks went softly pink. “...and Captain Rogers’, as well.”

It wasn’t a surprise. They’d figured out a long time ago that their second marks were in the same handwriting.

Bucky made a valiant effort, despite the way sleep was trying to tug him back down. “You got a name, angel-soulmate?”

That sweet blushing smile again, as her voice dropped to a whisper. “Delaney.”

He fell asleep with her name on his tongue and her face floating before his eyes.


End file.
